Islamic Army of Iraq founder: Isis and Sunni Islamists will march on Baghdad

Exclusive: Founder of Islamic Army of Iraq who was once described by
the US as a top terrorist target, explains how the fight against 'American
or Iranian occupation’ has united Isis and other Sunni Islamists in the
Battle for Baghdad

A top commander of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq has told The Telegraph how his men are fighting alongside the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham to take back Baghdad, even if it means pushing the country to civil war.

Sheikh Ahmed al-Dabash, 47, a founder of the Islamic Army of Iraq, who fought the allied invasion in 2003, has told how thousands of his men are participating in the Isis-led insurgency that swept across northern Iraq, and which now threatens the gates of the capital.

Ahmad Dabash is a founding member of the Islamic Army (Sam Tarling/The Telegraph)

The Islamic Army, however, does not share the same extremist ideology of Isis, Mr Dabash said in an exclusive interview with The Telegraph, and raised the prospect of his faction one day turning its guns on their jihadist comrades.

“If Maliki [the Iraqi prime minister] does not step down, then there is no doubt that we are moving on Baghdad,” said Mr Dabash. “We will go all the way.”

For over a decade, Mr Dabash has been a mastermind of the Sunni insurgency that fought the United States led occupation of Iraq in 2003.

Then an influential imam in Baghdad and a leading figure in the Batawi family, one of the country’s largest Sunni tribes, Mr Dabash mobilised tens of thousands of men, forming the Islamic Army of Iraq.

Initially in tandem with al-Qaeda, the Islamic Army battled allied troops across Iraq, making Mr Dabash one of America’s most wanted, with the US government describing him a key terrorist target in 2006.

Today, his men have regrouped to fight Iraq’s prime minister and his Shia-led, Iranian-backed, government.

“We are here to fight any occupation, whether American or Iranian. We have a common enemy with Isis now, and for this we are fighting together,” said Mr Dabash.

For the past six months Sunni insurgents have advanced, seizing territory in Anbar province and then, in the last two weeks, occupying Iraq’s second city of Mosul, and sweeping south, toppling towns and villages as the approach Baghdad.

Isis’ propaganda, promoted through Twitter, jihadist forums and even the groups’ own television station, announced its motivation for the onslaught as the desire to build an “Islamic State” comprising swathes of Iraq and northern Syria.

Little however has been known about the incentives of the factions who have joined the insurgency, providing the numbers and support that have made the group’s dramatic takeover possible.

In his first ever sit down interview, Mr Dabash, revealed the demands being made by fighters in the domestic insurgency.

“Maliki must first be deposed,” said Mr Dabash. “Then we demand the fragmentation of Iraq into three autonomous regions, with Sunnis, Shia and Kurds sharing resources equally.”

“And finally we need compensation for the one and half million Iraqis, most of them Sunnis, who have been killed at the hands of the Americans and the Maliki regime.”

Mr Dabash denied that Isis were the drivers of the attacks, instead describing the recent attacks as a sectarian “awakening” of Sunni Iraqis, who he said have suffered a decade of oppression.

“Is it possible that a few hundred Isis jihadists can take the whole of Mosul?,” said Mr Dabash. “No. All the Sunni tribes have come out against Maliki. And there are parts of the military, Baathists from the time of Saddam Hussein, clerics, everyone came out for the oppression that we have been suffering.”

“Those who are 18 today were children ten years ago. They grew up in a hateful environment,” said Mr Dabash. “They have seen too much oppression and violence; first by the Americans, and then by the Iraqi government who came to power on an American tank. Now, they are eager to bite off the head of the snake.”

Mr Dabash said he preferred a “political solution”, whereby the Iraqi government meets the Islamic Army’s demands.

But he accepted that this was unlikely, and that his men were ready to fight if the government pushed them to a bloody sectarian civil war.

In the past week the Iraqi government and Shia spiritual leaders have called Shia men to arms to fight the Sunni advance.

With the national army weakened, and having entirely fled the north of the country, the fighting in Iraq is increasingly delineated along sectarian fault lines.

“The call by the Shia sheikhs to their people to fight is going to lead to a civil war,” said Mr Dabash. “We hope they will retreat from this but if they do not then we are ready. All the Sunnis now are in one direction.”

As jihadists used Iraq as a rear base for their insurgency in neighbouring Syria in the past two years, the fragile country was once again acquiring the trappings of a civil war.

The senseless killings, so common during the country’s civil war in the early 2000s, once again returned, with suicide bombings in markets, on roads and in schools in both Shia and Sunni neighbourhoods across the country.

Some 2,764 civilians have died from violence in Iraq so far in June, according to Iraq Body Count, the highest count since the 2007 civil war.

The decision by the Islamic Army to take up arms again came in December of last year in Anbar province, said Mr Dabash.

“Before that we had been demonstrating peacefully for one year. But in spite of this, the Shia factions attacked us. They called the demonstrators terrorists and assassinated the peaceful movement.”

For several months after, Sunni factions held control of Anbar province, only moving on Mosul two weeks ago.

“We decided to attack Mosul to distract the army from their siege of Anbar,” said Mr Dabash.

The plan worked. Partly terrified of the threat of torture, and summary executions, including beheadings, bandied by Isis propaganda, and realising that Isis had the support of local Sunni militants, the Iraqi army capitulated.

The, mostly Shia, commanders fled back to Baghdad, leaving their troops to shed their uniforms and return to civilian life, or to join the insurgents.

Despite their current alliance, Mr Dabash said his group and Isis fundamentally differed in their goals.

While Isis foresees the creation of a hardline Islamic State, Mr Dabash’s men are pushing for Iraq to become a confederation ruled by a "softer" version of Islamic law.

“We are not extreme like Isis," he said. "We oppose the distorted version of Sharia that they endorse. Islam is a modern religion and has a lot of justice and mercy for everyone. There is no contradiction between civil development and our interpretation of Sharia law."

Mr Dabash was circumspect on whether he would turn against Isis, not wanting to cause rifts in their current alliance.

But, should the extremist group not bow to his group’s laws, he implied to The Telegraph that there would be little choice but to fight them.

Mr Dabash is a master at changing alliances. In 2003 he said he was a “brother to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,” al-Qaeda’s leader.

2004 attack on Karbala (Getty)

In the next three years, his name was associated with some of the most brutal sectarian attacks. The US accused him of financing the bomb attacks in the Shia holy city of Karbala on March 2, 2004 that killed 140 worshippers.

Mr Dabash denied to The Telegraph having any involvement in the Karbala attack.

In 2006 the Islamic Army broke away from al-Qaeda, denouncing them as “too extreme”.

However, they continued to fight the Americans in a bitter war that saw 293 members of Mr Dabash’s tribe killed, including four women.

“I was wanted, and so many of my relatives died in US targeted air strikes. They were trying to kill me,” he said. “Many were also killed by Shia forces trained by the US.”

Eventually Mr Dabash was captured and spent two years under interrogation in an American jail in Iraq.

Now, however, Mr Dabash is willing to make peace with the West if it means ousting Mr Maliki. He said he would welcome limited American support against the Maliki government, but not a full reoccupation of Iraq.

“We used to fight the Americans, but now, if they want to come they will be our guests, they will be our friends. We have no problem to meet with the secretary of state,” he said.

“We are one of the biggest factions fighting, and we will accept western military support to stop Maliki.”